Subject: Me, Myself- And That Other Person 1/1 A. Martin From: amartin10@juno.com (Ann M Martin) Date sent: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 12:42:38 EDT Title: Me, Myself-- And That Other Person By Ann Martin Summary: Scully does her little angsty thing, without any angst. She thinks things through-- and if you modify her thoughts to yours, you can see just how easily you can slip into what she's become. Spoiler: 4th Season Author's note: This is basically just justfication for me. Dealing with all the angst and pain and junk. RATING: Scully thinks some harsh language. But they're just *words*. I don't own any of this. Mulder and Scully and all the crap that demon has put them through belongs to Chris Carter; Scully's thoughts belong to their respective owners. Who don't happen to be me. ME, MYSELF-- AND THAT OTHER PERSON 1/1 ***** It was there, beckoning her, threatening to destroy her, taunting her. Cooing and speaking softly and begging for her to pay it some mind. Yes. She had a cancer. It might kill her. It might not. But who could tell if living was better? Heaven is a NICE place. Yes. So, she couldn't have her own children. She didn't even have a chance to decide if she *wanted* them. But she could always adopt. There were plenty of children who would need her, if she would only have them. Perhaps she would. Yes. Her partner was crazy. Yes, he was stubborn and untrusting and weird. But at least he was himself. He did what was right for him. She'd do what was right for her. It wasn't much to think of. But at least it wasn't angst. At least it wasn't that voice gnawing at the back of her brain telling her her life was over, she was going to die, it was all downhill from here. Maybe she didn't feel like dealing with it anymore. Yes, yes, the cancer was there. Sure, it might kill her. But if it was going to, sitting around crying wasn't going to help. Fine, so lately she'd been feeling stranger toward Mulder. Staying up nights fantasizing about how to deal with that wasn't going to make things different. Running into the office naked wasn't going to, either. But none of this was HER. Dana Scully wasn't her. Scully wasn't her. The cancer and Mulder and that smoking asshole weren't HER. It had been so long since she had been able to do some of the things she really enjoyed. She wondered why she hadn't. <<< Why can't I just be myself? I'm surrounded by all this stuff that I have no control over, but I DO have control over me.>>> Her favorite TV show ever had been seaQuest. Spelled like a true Questie, with the DSV after it and the capital Q. It was the silliest bit of fluff she had ever seen. Katie and Ben were the two people on the wacky sub. They were divorced. But they were one. <<>> No. Because Mulder wasn't a part of her. Even if she wanted him-- well. She would see. But why worry about it? She wasn't in 8th grade anymore. It didn't matter at all if the boys liked her. It mattered that SHE liked her. Why worry about it? If he wants you and you want him, fine. But if he didn't--- make yourself happy, Dana. You had dreams. You used to want things and want the best for yourself. You used to be vibrant. You used to love your world. She didn't so much. Not lately. She had been denying herself a lot. Milanos. Chocolate Milano cookies. Pepperidge Farm. They didn't fit into her diet anymore, she guessed. Mmmmm. But how she loved them. It was funny, that when she had been overweight in high school that it had never occurred to her that she, a *child*, could gain weight from eating Watchamacallits. She liked them, too. Them and Carmellos, that she ate when she had braces, even though she wasn't supposed to. Then she hadn't eated them again; she got her braces off and had a gut like a cow. So she rode her bike every day and sang to herself. Until she was so tired she was about ready to drop. Even now, she was trying to keep her weight down, eating her smallish meals six times a day and never eating her true loves. She also missed reading. Yeah, she LIKED science. She liked reading her scientific journals and knowing about it. But why was she a *doctor*? An FBI agent? She really could care less. When she was little, she wanted to be an astronaut. *Really* wanted to. No fear, no apprehension. But she was 13 and convinced herself she could never do it, not with her glasses, and there was too much of a risk that NASA would reject her. After all, why would she want to work for something she could never attain? Like.... aliens and Samantha and some goddamned wild goose chase that was leaving her behind in the dust and raising up this... bitch. What was she thinking about, again? Oh, she hated when that happened. When you're in the dark with your radio on, dancing with Miguel for the first time in years and they're playing "Angel Eyes," or whatever, that song, and Ben is looking at you intensely and Lucas socks him and you run down the beach to have an adult conversation with him. And you come upon a great thought and decide you'll carry that through as soon as you're done being pissed. Reading. Oh, yeah. She liked reading "Discover" and those. They were fun. But her passion was funny, quirky young adult books. Jill Pinkwater, she LOVED. If only she had read "Buffalo Brenda" when she was thirteen. What an enormous help. She just loved that. Brilliant young adult books. Funny ones, though. She liked "The Westing Game" and Roald Dahl and others. She read Wuthering Heights in two days, though, and never liked it very much. It just seemed stupid that those people had land and they could spend all their time on horses with books and they all ended up settling for their cousin and a death in childbirth. It had always seemed funny to her, to read a classic simply because it *was* a classic. She thought college professors should pick books that noone had ever heard of. It was stupid, that there were all these wonderful stories, yet what you *should* read had been defined by a bunch of grumpy old men. Now she just read Darwin. It had fascinated her as a child. She wasn't pleased with much lately. But she wouldn't take any crap off of that Scully anymore. Her favorite story ever was "The Princess Bride." The movie, the book--- she didn't care. Westley always looked the same to her-- poor and perfect-- and the story always had the same miraculous ending. She was longing for a copy of the movie-- it was out of print, she couldn't find it anywhere. She knew if she told Mulder it was her dying wish, he'd find her a copy and they'd watch it and she would know that Mulder shouldn't have been there. Scully was Scully. And even though her relationship with him went far beyond work, it didn't go deep into the recesses of her mind where she had interests and hobbies and crushes and obsessions. In fact-- She didn't WANT Mulder there. It was HER. And he wasn't her one true love or her brother or her friend. He was just Mulder, a part of her and a part of her life and she didn't know what would happen to him once she made some changes in her life. And frankly, she didn't care. Yes, it would be sad to lose him, and maybe it was selfish to set him aside. But at this moment, she *did not care*. Because if she gained herself and put her job aside-- maybe she wouldn't need Mulder. Maybe-- maybe she could be herself for the first time since she walked away from all her Internet friends and decided they weren't real, why love them? Why talk all day to people who understood you and liked you and didn't judge and shared your interests and were interesting?? Yes. Sigh. Why not just settle for a crazy man because it seems like the right thing to do, after four years?? Because she was alive and she was her and just because she cared for Mulder didn't mean she had to let go! She loved TV. A total JUNKIE. And she could stare at it for hours. Her one wish-- if she could have anything in this world-- it would be to be on first season seaQuest. She had had her character all worked out ever since the show had been on. She even had a favorite actor. One that she goo-gooed over like the brainless masses of Tom Cruise groupies. That was something she had to work out for herself-- having a crush on a jerk with a pretty face and no mind or reality. That was why she always chose obscure actors for conversation with her old college buddies. That was why she did her Brody bashing behind closed doors. She was a person. A person she hadn't been in a long time. The phone rang. "Scully.... Mulder. Hi..... no. No, really, I think I'm just going to have an evening for me.... Well, seaQuest is on the Sci-Fi----- I happen to like it!.... No. Listen to me. I'm just going to do this tonight and I'll see you in the office. Tomorrow. And you do something you like." She walked into the kitchen and opened up the cupboard. No Milanos... no Craisins. No real ginger ale, just diet. All sorts of fruit, but no kiwi, mango, or plums. No brownie mix. Maybe she would watch a movie.... What *had* happened to her copy of the Lighthorsemen? She needed naked Australian guys on horses... What about Space Camp? Or had she left that at home when she went to college and decided, finally, that she wasn't going to look at the stars anymore?? She still had the Princess Bride-- but she had never gotten around to seeing Lady Jane, Another Country-- all those movies she wanted to. Hmmm. There *was* seaQuest. She could even remember some of the episodes, some by heart. She used to love it. Used to sit there and watch it and remember it, slowly. How did that go? "What shall we do with a drunken sailor... ear'ly in the mornin'." She could always read-- but she had long ago sold Dinotopia and the Secret Oceans in a garage sale. Mr. Fred was long gone.... The Internet. Go on there and find Stefanie and Samantha and all her old buds. She could go out to the grocery store and buy... chips and sour-cream and onion dip. Dana Scully-- we are going to have to make some *changes* around her. For *you*-- not for anyone else. She could do what she wanted to do. And she was GOING to. ***** Tada. So I just wrote this in 40 minutes. Do you like? Ann Martin QUESTIE, X-Phile, Cary Elwes Fan (atic?) "If I were creating a show based on my life, it would be very different. It would be a lot more like seaQuest. I have a tremendous amount of underwater adventures involving alien beings." -Dave Barry My name is Scully. You ate my dog. Prepare to die. . . My name is Skinner. You took my hair. Prepare to die.